Posted tagged ‘deathwhisper’

I really wish this wasn’t the middle of finals and I could enjoy my patch 3.3 without feeling horribly guilty. I took a much needed evening away from the books (which may or may not have been a good idea) and played around in the new instances, then had some fun in ICC.

I had a little over an hour to do the new 5 mans. It wasn’t enough and I was called away to raid halfway through the second one. I don’t know if it was me or what, but I found there was a lot of caster trash. A lot of caster trash standing close enough together to be pulled at once, but far enough apart that I would have to run from one to the other to keep them interested in me. As I did that, the dps would invariably target the mob currently standing the furthest away from me, steal aggro and die. Line of sight pull you say, but no corners or stairs to use. Ah, to be a DK tank in this place…

As much as I complain, it was really nice to explore new instances and I wish I hadn’t been so pressed for time.

Icecrown Citadel…. Well, I found it insanely fun. I have a feeling that it’ll be old again in a few weeks, but for a first night, it was a lot, a lot, a lot of fun. It’s on the short side, there’s mentionable trash before Marrowgar, then between Marrowgar and Deathwhisper, but that’s pretty much it. In our 3 hour raid slot, we made it to Saurfang. We did pull him for fun after a few of our raiders hearthed out and got him a bit below 50%, but that was all the time we had.

The difficulty level seems just right for a first wing, despite whining I’m seeing on Twitter about how easy it is. It’s easy if you’re sporting cutting edge gear, have a group used to playing together and have a well disciplined raid composed of people who’ve either played the PTR or watched the videos. Like a lot Wrath, it does seems less like gear checks and more like “stand out of crap and do your job” checks. Again, it’s the only first wing of the Citadel. I appreciate that it’s accessible to most raiders and you don’t have to be farming ToGC 25 to enjoy it.

I found there was a lot of movement. On all 3 fights we did seriously, my execution could be summed up to: cast, move, cast, move, cast, move. Seriously, beacon your tank, heal the other tanks, heal the raid and don’t stand in stuff. But oddly enough, it was ok to heal as a paladin. Maybe it’s because the damage is designed to be less spikey, maybe it’s just because our heal team is that awesome, but I could move constantly without being panicked about losing the tanks. The movement was good, it kept me busy.

The spikes on Marrowgar also amused me to no end. They’re huge, I mean, HUGE! I couldn’t stop giggling at them. What? *shrugs* I thought it was a nice touch.

The Gunship Battle is a cool concept. You’re not exactly in a vehicle, except for those DPS who get to shoot things from a canon (/erm), you’re on a boat and you get a wear a jet pack and hop around. Unfortunately for me, by the time we reached that fight, it was 1 am my time and I was getting pretty drowsy. I think I would have appreciated the fight much more had I been awake enough to know what was going on. Still, the Gunship tips side to side (which would have made me dizzy if my screen were bigger) giving you the impression that you’re flying and, if you’re lucky, you get to use your jet pack to propulse yourself through the air, onto the enemy ship. Again, this will probably be old in a few weeks, but for now I’m loving it.

Of things to look out for, there are a lot of stairs at the beginning of the raid. Who says stairs says line of sight issues. Be prepared to give your character his/her daily exercise by running up and down, up and down, up and down.

If you, um, wipe on the Gunship battle, make sure it’s completely reset before zoning back in. There’s a bug that lets you zone in during the reset, then kills you. I wasn’t very impressed. Also, if you’re on the enemy ship when it goes down, well, sucks to be you. And don’t let anyone touch the Gunship chest while people are running back. Unless you want to have to put in a ticket to get your badges.